In Between Days
by caitthecursed
Summary: It's lonely training by himself, but Naruto has two ghosts to keep him company. Implied SasuNaruSaku, rated for sexual content.


**A/N: **Welcome to the guttery portion of my headcanon-we know Naruto ships SasuSaku, we just don't know how much. This takes place about a year and a half into the timeskip.

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Naruto hated nothing more than going to bed with an erection.

It wasn't that he had anything in particular against erections. He'd spent enough time being dragged to women's bathhouses and sneaking glances at girls' legs to be quite familiar with the workings of his equipment. He even sort of liked the warm, fizzy feeling it gave him, despite the mortifying knowledge that ero-sennin _always_ noticed.

The problem came at night, when Naruto's defenses were down and the weight of everything he hadn't yet accomplished sunk into him again. _Worthless,_ it whispered, _lazy and worthless and weak, you've been training this long and you still haven't saved him yet? You're not strong enough to save him, and you'll never be worthy of her._

If his body wasn't fourteen years old and fortified with a libido the strength of ten hurricanes, these thoughts would kill his boner in an instant. As it was, he remained hot and hard and infuriated, despair soaking through his chest and his pulse slamming in his ears like water torture.

"Fucking dick," he grumbled, sticking his hand beneath the blanket. "I'm not even horny right now, you stupid thing. I hope you're happy." The lazy movement of his hand brought absolutely no relief, and he had to remind himself not to scream in frustration when Jiraiya was sleeping in the next room. 

_Now, what to think about?_ He deepened his breathing and tried to relax, searching his mind for whatever fleeting thought or vision had brought this condition on him. All he'd done today was train—it hadn't even been the rough, exhilarating kind of training that sometimes gave him weird physical reactions. The only thing that came to mind was the same thing that always came to mind: Sakura-chan. The smell of her sweat and the softness of her hair and the dirty, dangerous little smile she only gave when she wasn't trying to be pretty. 

_Pathetic. Dead last. She looks on you with disgust. Why would she let you touch her, when she could have him?_

Naruto sighed and let his hand drop. This was why he didn't think about Sakura. He couldn't stop his mind from conjuring the disappointment in her eyes, the revulsion on her face every time he made a particular idiot of himself, the look of painful, beautiful, terrible longing she reserved for Sasuke's back. 

_Fine. If you want to play that way, I'll play that way._

Slowly, he returned his hand to its proper position and gave himself one, two rough strokes. He sucked in a deep breath and began running through his secret standby fantasy. 

_Strong fingers tangled in pink hair. It looks so soft in his hands—her eyes close as he rubs his fingertips into her scalp, and she lets out a little sigh. Her face is flushed, that bright pink that starts at her hairline and goes all the way down the front of her dress. It clashes with her hair, but she looks so pretty all flustered like that it doesn't matter._

_His mouth is on her throat, right next to the hollow of her collarbone. I bet she's really sensitive there—his tongue darts out and licks along her neck, and she makes a soft little noise and bites her lip. Her skin must feel so hot against his mouth. No, he wants her as much as she wants him. He doesn't flush as dark as her, but it's still visible on the pale skin inside his collar. His lips probably feel as warm on her neck as her skin does against his lips._

_If he's horny too, she knows it. His mouth feels good, but the opportunity to get him out of that bastard shell is too good for her to pass up. She tugs his collar down and latches on with hard sucks and bites, going straight for the kill with her teeth bared. God, that has to feel good—her teeth digging and scraping the tender skin of his throat, lighting all those sensitive spots on fire. His pulse is going crazy under her mouth, and she can taste the sweat on his skin. He'll be covered in marks by the time she's done, signs that scream to the world just who he belongs to._

Naruto's eyes flew open. His breathing was loud in the silence of the room, and the pulse in his throat raced under his fingers. It wasn't weird for him to think about Sasuke while doing this—he wanted to imagine Sakura really turned on, and this was the easiest way to do it. It wasn't even weird to think about what she did to Sasuke, to imagine how it felt and how he looked and pretend for just a moment that they were together and happy and in love. To pretend that the warmth that flooded every part of his body when he thought about her could be shared between two people.

The weird thing was that the thought of Sasuke baring his throat, letting Sakura mark his skin where everyone could see it, was just about the sexiest thing Naruto had ever imagined.

He gave his shaft a slow stroke, up and down, his breath coming out in a shaky sigh. _If my dick wants Sakura to be in charge, she'll be in charge._

_He's stretched out on the ground—on the bed, on the floor, wherever they are—and she's lying on top of him, straddling his hips with her hands propped on his chest. The weight of her body settles right on his crotch, her every movement rubbing that amazing heat against his dick. He can't tell through his pants, but she's really wet. He moves his hands to her thighs, runs them up her legs and up her sides and around the span of her ribs. She sighs when his hands find her chest, gripping the small curves of her breasts._

_Do girls like having their nipples touched? Probably—they're hard against his palms, and she bites her lip and squeals when he rubs his hands against them. Her fingers dig into his chest, and she brushes against the front of his shirt in an attempt to return the favor._

_His shirt is too thick, so it comes off. His chest is pale and thin, heaving under her hands with every breath. His eyes are so black next to the white of his skin, big and black and locked on her like he can see right into her soul. They don't flutter closed, not when she traces the pale expanse of his stomach and feels the place where his heart beats like a caged animal. They stay locked on her as she finds his dark, swollen nipples and pinches them hard just to hear him growl._

_He rocks his hips up into her, unconsciously, the way mine rock when I'm getting close like this. She stretches out over him so she can bury her face in his neck again, smell his sweat and taste his pulse on her tongue. Their hips rock together, surging and clinging and letting that heat swell until every little touch burns like fire, until their lungs expand and contract with the same air and not even their hearts beating against each other is close enough, until she shrieks into his neck and he grabs her hips hard enough to bruise and my nails scrape hard against my chest and we shake and shudder and melt with a pleasure that fuses us closer than should be possible, until she's looking out of his black eyes and him out of her green ones and they're so so close there can't possibly be room for me._

Naruto shook for a whole ten minutes after finishing. He curled on his side with the blankets wrapped tightly around him to minimize the phantom sensation of two warm bodies that should be next to his.

"This is fucking hopeless," he muttered, needing to hear something other than his own breathing. He twisted the blanket in his hands. The space between him and them, aching enough during the day, seemed to yawn into an unbridgeable chasm that might as well have lead to the moon. He didn't have them, and they didn't have each other, and it could be days or it could be decades before he had both of them within reach again.

He pulled the blankets tighter around himself and tried to remember the color of Sakura's nail polish. He recalled the angle of Sasuke's scowl and what Sakura's hair looked like wet, the shape of his hands and the width of her hips. He remembered the hope in Sakura's eyes when she pledged to save Sasuke with him, and the feel of Sasuke's hand burning inside his chest without puncturing his heart.

Once he saved Sasuke, they'd be together again. And once they were together, not even death could tear them away from him.


End file.
